Bose-Einstein condensation temperature of a homogeneous weakly interacting Bose gas: Path integral Monte Carlo study

Abstract

Using a finite-temperature path integral Monte Carlo simulation (PIMC) method and finite-size scaling, we have investigated the interaction-induced shift of the phase-transition temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation of homogeneous weakly interacting Bose gases in three dimensions, which is given by a proposed analytical expression ${T}_{c}={T}_{c}^{0}{1+{c}_{1}a{n}^{1∕3}+[{c}_{2}^{\ensuremath{'}}\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\mathrm{ln}(a{n}^{1∕3})+{c}_{2}^{\ensuremath{''}}]{a}^{2}{n}^{2∕3}+\mathrm{O}({a}^{3}n)}$, where ${T}_{c}^{0}$ is the critical temperature for an ideal gas, $a$ is the $s$-wave scattering length, and $n$ is the number density. We have used smaller number densities and more time slices than in the previous PIMC simulations [Gruter et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 3549 (1997)] in order to understand the difference in the value of the coefficient ${c}_{1}$ between their results and the (apparently) other reliable results in the literature. Our results show that ${({T}_{c}\ensuremath{-}{T}_{c}^{0})∕{T}_{c}^{0}}∕(a{n}^{1∕3})$ depends strongly on the interaction strength $a{n}^{1∕3}$ while the previous PIMC results are considerably flatter and smaller than our results. We obtain ${c}_{1}=1.32\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.14$, in agreement with results from recent Monte Carlo methods of three-dimensional O(2) scalar ${\ensuremath{\phi}}^{4}$ field theory and variational perturbation theory.